Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @07:34PM
from the gov't-power-concentration-is-fine-though dept.

AndyAndyAndyAndy writes "It seems that the FCC has approved the proposed merger between Comcast and NBC, effectively kicking apart hopes for protection against 'pipes and their water' frameworks. Pres. Obama's 2008 goal also goes ignored: 'I strongly favor diversity of ownership of outlets and protection against the excessive concentration of power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group.' The Dept. of Justice is also onboard, leaving little hope that this will be stopped."

think of the lawyer on the simpson's episode who stood up on his desk to do a dance when apu's wife wanted to file for divorce. yes, the guy who looked like the animal who stole her chickens back in india.

One step closer to a single outfit controlling^Wsupplying all your media needs.

Along with that, it will be interesting to see what happens when Comcast gets Universal Studios along with NBC. I guess it means they'll start suing their own file-sharing customers -- which they won't even have to subpoena the names for. Maybe you'll even just see a charge on your next bill:

I don't have a citation, but from what I've read Comcast has some of the shittiest customer service of them all. You get AOL-Time Warner, Comcast-NBC, I'm sure there are others. As the media producers combine with the new-age distribution channels, we are going to get the corporate internet we all dread. Its coming, and Washington isn't going to do a fucking thing about it.

Its going to be like AOL all over again, except you will have to pay extra for third party email, third party content. Shit--ISP and b

If only it were really that simple. Unfortunately, it isn't. Mesh Networks would suffer from quite a few problems trying to create a 2nd Internet with the infrastructure owned and operated entirely by the people.

1) Density. If every single person had this magical box fully capable of doing everything we wanted it to do in Los Angeles, it would not be able to communicate with everyone doing it in Las Vegas. There are large patches of dead space in which the only way to get across are dedicated pathways, which shockingly, are expensive. The only difference between the Atlantic ocean and Death Valley is the cost of running of the fiber through it. Other than that, they are pretty much the same as far as networking is concerned.

2) Bandwidth. We better create a Darknet with distribution principles similar to Freenet. Even then, it will be slow. You just can't take for granted edge network delivery, aka, CDN's like Akamai for granted. If Mesh Network nodes are like little leaves, then it will really suck if the whole network is connected together with twigs and branches. You actually need the ISPs here with their fat ass trunks and peering and transit agreements.

3) Latency. Another thing you are taking for granted, and probably the worst one to be taking for granted. With CDN, I have seen as little as 4 hops to get to Google. Most places you need to get to will be between 10-15 hops, and a good portion of on fiber. Meaning, pulses of light . That 30-70ms latency you have been enjoying is going to get a lot worse with Mesh Networking. It's just Physics. Remember all the little twigs and branches right? Well to get all the way from one end of Los Angeles to the other I am betting you will be going through dozens of wireless nodes. So on top of being limited the biggest pipe for bandwidth along the route, you are going to be enjoying latencies that make most real time stuff like gaming, voip, etc. impossible.

Every last mile provider sucks ass. They all do because there really is very little competition. But we need the backbone ISPs like Verizon, AT&T, etc. They are the *only* way we currently have to create an actual functioning Internet with the peering and transit agreements that make the whole darn thing work.

There is *only* ONE way Mesh Networking can succeed. We must have wireless POPs distributed throughout all of the communities that allow those Mesh Network nodes to connect and send traffic through them that they can't reach, which is going to be a lot more than you think.

Mesh Networks are a pipe dream. If the government can't get together, or won't get together, to stop shit like this NBC-Comcast merger, then we have no hope at all of getting cities to lay down their own fiber and start operating their own wireless POPs for the citizenry.

Which is really really really fucking sad . We gave easements to the telecom corporations for years with the understanding they would contribute to the community. Not only have the telcos mostly fucked the people, but now they are gouging the crap out of us. We the people own most of the damned land they run their fiber across. When are we going to start to see a payback on all the leeway and incentives we have given those bastards for decades?

Why is it that when cities start wanting to put down their own fiber the telcos start crying like little bitches and bring out the lawyers?

The whole thing just reeks of corruption and oppression at this point. The Internet is dying at this point. It will turn into some sort of pathetic shadow of itself. What I predict will happen is that people will go back to Sneakernet style sharing since storage is getting so massive. At that point it would probably be faster and safer anyways. Not only will the bandwidth be expensive, but anything that is not being paid a premium will be throttled down into something not viable for its purpose. Encryption might not be outlawed, but it will certainly be given lower priority because they can't analyze it and figure out if it is competition to them.

Let's just start making all our own content and distributing it by sneaker net and avian protocols. I'm tired of every single damn decision going towards funneling more funds and freedom (for abuse) to the megacorps. We'll hire Kenyans drinking powerthirst to be the runners for the sneakernet version of gmail.

My campus has its own internal sharing program DTella [dtella.org]. A mashup of DC++ and IRC.

The source code is open, so you should be able to adapt it to any other subnet. I will take my laptop to campus and find a Gigabit ethernet port a few times a week. Makes me feel I'm living in a first world country. I'll can exceed my "Comcast 250GB Limit" in under an hour. Pondering setting up a dark net in my apartment complex.

It seems these kinds of excesses are only dealt with after some severe abuse. Even though the potential for abuse is clear, the regulatory approach always starts with vague promises by corporations with spotty histories and some limited, in scope and duration, conditions with questionable enforcement provisions.

There's a (somewhat costly) countermeasure to this, which is to route tracker queries through either https or tor to prevent eavesdropping, and scrape trackers instead of adding your IP address to the swarm (i.e. don't advertise a listen port), to prevent passive monitoring of swarm participants. The cost is that now your client no longer accepts incoming connections, so it can only make outgoing connections. For small torrents or initial seeding, this can be a problem, but for torrents with many peers, the

What in the world makes you believe that voting means anything? Supposedly, according to the media (and not just the "mainstream media" but ALL media, left-wing, right-wing, blogs, etc) there have been HUGE ideological swings in the parties in power. We've had republicans running everything and democrats running everything but regardless of the rhetoric, the end result is the same. But don't think it's because there are no difference between the parties. No, it's because the parties, the elections, even the government itself is nothing more than the "circuses" part of "bread and circuses". The whole shooting match is nothing but a distraction. Something to make us feel like we're doing something.

Here you are, puffing out your chest and asserting that "Hell no! I'll not be voting for a Democrat nor a Republican in the next election". And you'll spend time pouring over information, choosing just the right third party or independent candidate who will most closely mirror your worldview. You will march down to the polling place, secure in the belief that you have done some sort of "civic duty". Really, you're passing responsibility from your hands into an invisible system so you can then say "don't blame me, I voted for "X"". The time you spent reading up on the candidates on the issues on the important matters of the day, the time you spent deciding, the time you spent voting will have amounted to nothing. Those in power will not have noticed one bit. It means nothing.

Polls are taken, published, trumpeted by partisan media. People point and say "See? Most of the country agrees with me!" and it will make you feel as though you are "in the right" that you are connected to something that in some way will effect outcomes. The board of directors at General Electric, at Comcast, are as aware of you, of your dreams, your goals, your complaints, your anger and rage as you are of the bacteria that live in the soil in the dirt in the postage-stamp sized bit of grass in front of your house or apartment.

When a tiny percentage of the population own virtually everything and forty percent of the population own zero - not one bit of anything why would you think that this "politics" thing, this thing which is done for your entertainment, to keep you amused and engaged like a 2pm game of Bejeweled is actually going to matter to the people in power?

I think GP was referring to wealth, not consumption. And in that case, he's reasonable accurate to say that the poorest 40% of Americans have a net worth of no more than $0. The average household savings rate has been negative for much of the last 2 decades, so what would be more surprising is if these families weren't running out of money.

It is in the interest of governments to allow monopolies, it is much easier to order 1 big entity to cough up certain needed information or to force them to execute the government plans, than a lot of small entities.

This revolving door between big corporate US and the government (fascism) is starting to be a real burden on the people, all we have to wait for now is government to draw the wrong cards and finding that in reality their power is more and more subdued by the corporates.

But then, the people lost already 50 years ago when Ike proclaimed his farewell speech, this is just the final stage of that losing battle.

For the love of all that's holy, that's not what fascism is. Fascism is a political philosophy in which the state is the primary component. In a fascist system, there are no true property rights and business owners can lose everything if they are proscribed by a powerful individual.

Fascism has more in common with communism (they're both totalitarian systems in which the state is the most important element) than collusion between business interests and government. That's more of a mercantilist system.

It seems like Obama has betrayed a large fraction of the ideals he stated during his campaign.

What I'd like to know is, during his campaign, did he...

(a) Lie about those ideals, never intending to pursue them?

(b) Tell the truth about what his ideals where, but know he was exaggerating about being able to accomplish all of them?

(c) Intend to achieve them all, but not realize that he could only chose a handful to push through?

(d) Once in office (and with access to all classified info), realize that some of his campaign promises were unwise, although he believed them to be wise at the time?

The answers to these may suggest whether we as citizens need to be more realistic about what's really possible (for example, effective counterintelligence while prosecuting your state torturers), or whether Obama is really just a far worse person than people give him credit for.

Well... "c" and "d" imply that he wasn't lying at all, and we know for a fact that all successful politicians lie, so I'll with "b" since the easiest lie to tell is the one that's rooted in truth. For better or worse, nobody keeps all their campaign promises. Though I do think he (and many others) saw the Democratic majority in the house and senate as somewhat of a free pass, underestimating the strength of the obstructors.

Even if "d" could be a little true, it certainly doesn't hold much water in this case

1) Stimulus package. Passed, and current estimated at having added 3.5M jobs to the economy.2) Raise taxes for people making over $250k/year. He ultimately caved rather than let the GOP cut off unemployment checks to millions of people.3) Health care reform. Done, though lacking the public option he had touted on the campaign trail. He tried to get it, but ultimately Lieberman and a few others wouldn't budge.4) Keep lobbyists out of the system for at least two years from their last job. I don't know how, or if, he ever intended to do that one. Oddly, he mainly talked about it after he was elected. Maybe he just really didn't understand how DC works...5) Establish consumer credit safeguards. Done (for credit cards, mortgages, and student loans).6) Allow bankruptcy courts to modify predatory mortgages. He tried, but it got voted down in the House. Badly.7) Cap and trade. Filibustered to death in the Senate.8) Immigration reform. Hasn't really been addressed. The DREAM act was by no means comprehensive reform.9) Increase investment in science and technology. Considering he's increased science budgets by around $75 billion over the past two years, I'd say he's stuck by that one.10) Repeal DADT. Done.11) More transparency in the government. He has stood by that one, just not to the extent that most people on Slashdot want. "More transparency" doesn't mean putting Assange in charge of the NSA. You can now find freely available audits on the use of the stimulus funds, for example. Good luck tracing the TARP money sent out under Bush.12) Net Neutrality. Let's be honest. While this is probably the top of Slashdot's agenda, it's likely the bottom of his. He hasn't touched the issue much one way or the other.

So of the top 12, there are 3 that he hasn't really tried to accomplish: Cutting down on lobbying, reforming immigration, and net neutrality. I'd say telling the truth 75% of the time is remarkably good for a politician, pathetically low as that standard may be.

To be honest, quite a few on that list were obviously a wish list with a snowball's chance in hell of coming true (either because of legislative opposition or logistic impossibility):* Gitmo cannot close any time soon. We don't know what to do with who's there.* An entire bill being debated on C-SPAN from start to finish, where the bill goes beyond someone's birthday being acknowledged.* a health plan that includes anything smelling like a national health care system. America isn't ready for it.* Prosecutio

Uh no. Democrats in Congress talked bad about him endlessly. Of course, they voted for it, then bashed him for pushing it through or whatever. But yes, Democrats did question him while he was in office.

I'm not sure what liberals you're referring to, but every liberal I know is still pissed off about the public option being taken out of health care reform. Same goes for Guantanamo still being open. Take a serious look at dailykos, firedoglake, or crooksandliars and you'll find plenty of liberal criticism of Obama.
As to liberals "still" blaming Palin for the Giffords shooting, I challenge you to show me one example of a liberal blog blaming her for it. I challenge you! Give me an example. Palin h

The shooter wasn't a radical liberal, as you call him. He had no known political affiliation, and had copies of both Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto, which implies he was extremely confused about politics, if anything.

Considering that he had both a firearm and a red thong and photographed himself with both, he clearly had Republican leanings. And, he'll be leaning over in jail for a long time. With that shaved head, and an extra 100 pounds, he'd be like Cartman come to life.

Really, the Obama Administration has been just a continuation of the Bush Administration. Every time they have had a choice, they have chosen to keep the status quo and to continue to favor large business. This is no exception. The only change we got is in the last name of the POTUS.

One's a formerly drunk Texan. The other is a formerly high Hawaiian with slightly darker skin.

Is a difference is it not?

Of course you meant policy, but if you really think they are exactly the same there, I don't see much point in trying to convince you otherwise (I do see the parallels in an aggressive strategy in the middle east and in not taking a hilarious hard line with big business though).

Downvote this garbage, PLEASE. This is becoming such a tired meme born of cynics who fail to objectively look at the world around them. What the hell did people honestly think was going to happen... that Obama was going to change the world and usher in a utopia to please every libertarian and liberal alike? Jesus people! The president is clearly a moderate and a consensus builder. Despite conservative talking points, there has clearly been a concerted effort to engage conservative and liberal proposals and find something that both find appealing... something lacking the last 8 fucking years! Did we suddenly forget that the previous president stopped engaging other nations, ordered people to be tortured, invaded sovereign nations, passed absolutely NO domestic bills to address any looming problems (healthcare? They had the House/Senate/White House), Guantanamo, lying about weapons of mass destruction, an anti-science agenda actively trying to discredit science findings, ousting CIA agents to discredit them, commuting the sentences administration members who committed crimes, Ordering the NSA to wiretap US civilians... did everyone suddenly get amnesia and forget what the fuck happened during the last 8 years of the Bush administration!?

Jesus Christ, people... I don't approve of everything the Obama administration does but shut the fuck up, please... this "meet the new boss same as the old boss" bullshit is so grating. Yes, Obama is a politician and does politician things. Yes, the Obama administration has continued some of the Bush era prcatices. But there is no fucking way you can objectively sit there and tell me he is anywhere NEAR the level of fuckup the previous president was... he is a massive improvement.

Tell you what, come talk to me when Obama knowingly manufactures evidence to start a war with Iran, discredits everyone who knows he's lying, and pardons Timothy Geithner after he leaks classified information to the press... then punches a baby in the face... then we'll talk about how bad Obama is.

. . . heard that. Remember when GE made TVs? Remember when they made other TV equipment (post RCA, per-RCA re-aquisition) like TV cameras, too? Remember when they owned Universal Studios, too? Remember when pundits said GE was going to control the airwaves (as they did when they first owned RCA) and the minds of America? Now, who is selling NBC to Comcast?

GE/NBC/MSNBC spent tons of money and pundit time getting Obama Elected, so this must be the payback they were looking for, to dump the network and the only company big enough and positioned enough to acquire NBC(Universal) is Comcast.

The FCC and SEC had to pretty much agree to it, in spite of the objections of people worried about media control. Soon as I saw the proposal, I knew it would go through.

Are you ready to concede, that the FCC should not to be in charge of regulating the internet?..or do you need the FCC to fuck you over a couple more times before you will listen?

You are drawing exactly the wrong conclusion. In this case, the FCC is letting Comcast fuck us over. If the FCC is not in charge of regulating the internet, everyone with money and power will be able to fuck us over. At least with net neutrality regulation, they'll at least have to ask the FCC before they do it. It's not the best possible world, but it's better than the one we get without net neutrality.

The Worshipers of the Grand Free Market (except where the tariffs and controls prevent others from competing with the Grand Free Established and Entrenched) are full force and full on in genesis of this decay.

Sure the FCC makes stupid token actions in terms of the indecency of seeing aging female nipple or any male appendage over the airwaves to keep the proles feeling "protecte

I agree with all the posters here that have seen where America is going. It is no longer a multi party democracy. When was the last time Americans had any control of important legislation? Where was the vote on the Health Care Plan that Obama pushed through with his majority vote?

This country no longer is controlled by the citizens. At least at my state level I can vote on certain state initiatives but I did not get a chance to vote on the Health Care Plan and the Health Care Plan will wind up costing me

He might say he "strongly favors" this and that, but it's quite likely his power is much more limited than people realize. He's just one man against an entire bureaucracy with established connections between various groups that aren't going to be particularly willing to budge, no matter what he says. For him to make a difference he would have to put his political career on the line and risk significant retribution from those who don't want the change he's after.

For this reason I'm not sure whether to blame Obama just yet. Of course, maybe he was just naive in thinking he could conduct change without any personal risk.

there were rules AGAINST media companies owning one another and cross-media ownership. It seems those days are gone forever. It is very sad that we are allowing so much power to concentrate in so few hands.

It's both, you pinheads! When are you douchebags going to wise up to the fact that the Democrats AND Republicans are both full of shit, corrupt entities? The right vs. left "fight" is only a diversion to keep you from noticing that the corporations continue to bribe, I mean, lobby their point home with tons of cash for anyone willing to vote their way? You think your vote does anything useful? You're fooling yourself. You think the Tea Party is going to be any different? Good luck, citizens. The corp

Not answering to this specific situation, but you are 100% wrong. Not objecting strongly enough to burn political capital to change the decisions of others is not the same thing as actively supporting it. Pretending they are the same is a lie. I don't know Obama's opinion on this, and neither do you. You don't know what he's thinking and don't have enough from this situation to deduce it. Don't pretend you can and then assert that it has to be the worst possible situation.

While the Republicans have certain ideological commitments to "free market" (i.e. free for the incumbents) content creation and distribution, the Democrats just get too much in campaign contributions to let this sort of thing fall apart. You'd be better off pushing for public financing of elections, or organizing your friends into a cadre of nutty "patriots" who show up at town hall meetings with rifles and threaten "second amendment remedies" to the problems of media consolidation.

In my opinion, if someone is against it...well saying something and doing something are two different things. I think it is apathy that is to blame. Too many (non tech-"savy") people just say they really do not care that much. Apathy, hell we know those lobbyists are very motivated people. The other problem is ignorance, I mean the internet is a series of tubes right?

...kicking apart hopes for protection against 'pipes and their water' frameworks.

Oh right, pipes. Also from the article:

...the Federal Communications Commission determined the deal was in the nation's public interest...

WTF? I thought the Dems were all about keeping the monopolies from taking over, and then collapsing, as happened in 2008.

"Democrats" and "Republicans" haven't run anything in the United States for at least a few decades.

These terms are only used for betting purposes now. Political power belongs to people for whom limiting terms such as "party" or "ideology" have no meaning.

Today, power is vested with people whose names are not widely known. "Dems" and "Repubs" are little more than handy punching bags that can be blamed for problems so the people in power won't be disturbed.

My political take on the situation is that Obama is facing criticism that he isn't "business friendly", and the GOP is using this impression to pin the lingering jobs problem on him. For this reason, he has been reluctant to address mergers.

I don't agree with the GOP on the business-friendly issue; for companies have plenty of profits and cash of late. However, in politics, impressions are everything and Obama is facing re-election soon.

2012 the year of the cable only or PPV olympics then in 2014 EPSN or fox get's them.

I've been wondering for quite a while anyone would watch the Olympics. Are they really that interested in how much the death of the bronze medal winner's great grandmother affected his childhood? I really don't care if Michael Phelp's socks make his feet itch. Personally I hope that they go PPV and nobody pays.

the usa canada games where big in 2010 but nbc f*** up game one by having it on MSNBC that very few had in HD (comcast Chicago did not have it) but they had the end of the game on NBC in HD but did not tell any one that it was moved there.

I like watching the olympics for the sports. I hate that the only thing that makes it on TV are the events Americans are likely to medal in and even though 90% of the actual competitions aren't televised, we get hours and hours about dead grandmothers and socks.

Getting random sports with no commentary would be much better than what we get now. The worst thing that ever happened to US sports was John Madden.